How Late-Night Reacted to the San Bernardino Shooting

L.A.-based James Corden and Southern California native Larry Wilmore were the only late-night hosts to address yesterday’s deadly shooting that killed 14 people. (Stephen Colbert is on vacation this week.) Corden started his show by saying, "it's never a fun day at work when you see members of your team phoning family and friends to check that they're alive. It occurred to me today we've only been on the air for nine months and it baffles me that we have to talk so often about mass shootings and tragedy. While at the top of his show, Wilmore said: “This is really unacceptable. Coming off the heels of the shooting last week at Planned Parenthood, it’s just so overwhelming. It’s happening too f—ing much, all right?”

McIntyre and fellow New Kid on the Block Donny Wahlberg will produce a comedy starring McIntyre as a cable talk show host with a hectic family life. Pop has also ordered Celebrity Escape Room and the comedic talk show I Watch it With My Girlfriend, in which men comment on female-skewing TV hits.

Last night’s midseason finale was full of “OMG” Twitter moments, but they came at the expense of storylines that really mattered. As Pilot Viruet notes, Empire is supposed to be quick and full to the brim with juicy theatrics — that’s part of its charm. But when it starts to sacrifice some of the greatness and originality that are embedded within its emotional, rarely explored storylines in favor of more overt silliness, the show begins to suffer.” PLUS: Empire’s complete disconnection from objective reality is going to be what ultimately does the show in, Lee Daniels and Jussie Smollett defend that shocking hookup, Empire ended the year with one of its best episodes, how Danny Strong arrived at the midseason finale, and Empire threw a wrench into its very binary ideas about sexual identity.